It’s been a long time coming, but I finally got the chance to test out the DJ streaming site, Mixify the other night and I had a great time. Let me break it down for you with a review of the site and how it all works, plus an awesome deal, courtesy of Mixify!

What is Mixify

Mixify is a website intended for streaming your DJ sets. It’s set up especially for this and you can see lots of thought and planning has been put into it.
It’s like a virtual street lined with virtual nightclubs, you can take a cruise around and enter each ‘club’ as you like and check out what’s being played and how busy it is there. It’s basically a chat room with a live DJ.

There’s even a fun “Getting past the bouncers..” remark as you enter the room, which made me chuckle!

Bouncers without the hassle – Love it!

Listening on Mixify

Upon arriving at the site, you are greeted with two main options: You can check out the current live streams, or browse through archived sets.

Once inside either category, you can choose from a selection of: featured, newest, most played, most popular or a list of your own curated DJ’s in the ‘My DJ’s‘ section.

After selecting your preferred listening options, you can filter your search further, by genre, using the drop-down filter.

You can cruise around the current live shows and join any room you like, once there you may be treated to a video stream or simply a live audio stream. The room shows who else is in attendance, with the option to join the public chat, or to message people privately. It’s a very interactive experience and one that can be enjoyed for some time, so long as you like the music.

Depending on the system the DJ is using to broadcast; you might also be treated to an automated track listing that changes as the music does. This is great for sourcing new tracks and removes the necessity to ask, or if you’re a DJ; deal with those asking for track names.

Hovering over buttons on the left of the screen offers up further options, including locations of all attendees, the playlist, share buttons and party mode.

Party Mode sets the room to full screen. This is especially great when the DJ playing is using video streaming.

The share buttons include Facebook and Twitter, enabling you to invite people to come join you in the room. They work great without having to leave the platform.

(A suggestion to implement here, might be to add the DJ’s twitter handle automatically to the tweet if they have assigned one in their profile?)

You also have the option to become a Fan of a DJ, which places them in the ‘My DJ’s’ section. During a show you can also ‘Hype’ it, which is similar to the all too familiar ‘Like’. If the DJ has Tip Jar enabled, you can also send them some money via PayPal.

DJ’ing on Mixify

So aside from the experience of being the listener, an important aspect is how does it all operate from the perspective of the DJ?

Streaming my first set was a lot of fun and the interactive nature of the platform caused me to stick around longer than I intended. It’s encouraging to know that people are listening and commenting.

The comment window highlights the DJ’s name in blue so that he / she stands out. You have the option of muting the subtle ‘pop’ noise generated by comments, if you want to be left alone to DJ. I found it helpful to leave on, so that I knew when people were talking to me. (Be mindful though, based on your set up you might be broadcasting the pop)

There is an indicator in the top right corner telling you your internet connection quality, something you should try and keep in the green to ensure your patrons are receiving the best experience possible.

Set Up

Despite the setup being fairly straightforward, I encountered some issues re-locating the set up instructions and realized that in order to find this I had to go back through the process of setting up my stream again.

The set up instructions are located on the blog, which then send you over to the forum. This seems a little contrived and sent me round in circles for bit, but I feel this could be easily remedied by placing this under a “Support” or “Set Up” tab on the main menu bar.

Once I had worked through the set up, I was warned that a plug-in on Google Chrome was conflicting with the Flash player, causing me to disable and enable flash plugins in the browser. All the relevant instructions were provided, so kudos to Mixify for getting that all straightened out.

Because of the rich graphical experience when looking for a room to join, you MUST upload an image every time you broadcast – I would love to see this default to your standard image, to save you this additional time and effort.

When entering in your stream details, you must select a time that is at least 15 minutes ahead, this gives you plenty of time to make the relevant set up, make yourself look good and get your first track ready. Infact, you even have time to make a cup of tea!

If you are wanting to stream internally from Traktor you must obtain different settings and passwords from the broadcast setting window. This is a great way to stream as it gives you the added bonus of creating a playlist for your listeners.

You copy the details of your unique settings from the set up window above into the broadcast window in Traktor below.

Once they’re all in, you hit the broadcast button inside of Traktor and your stream is ready to go.

In total, it took me about 40 minutes to get everything running, for the first time, before I was able to broadcast. I’m expecting it to take most of you less than that, but just a heads up. (My second attempt was much smoother and took merely a couple of minutes.)

All you have left to do is some last minute promotion and wait for the countdown to begin. You can even set your event to be days into the future, just remember to turn up to hit start. This is a great way to commit yourself to DJ’ing a set. If you’ve told your friends on Mixify that you’re going to play, you want to make sure you show up!

When you start your broadcast, the volume on your computer automatically dips so you don’t hear your mix delayed through the internet. You can however adjust the volume in order to check that your audio is streaming. Thankfully I had a few listeners to verify my settings too.

Magical Video Streaming

I was testing out the Pro Package, which enables you to stream video and not just audio. This really helps to prove to listeners that you’re actually live and seems to increase engagement. Placement of your DJ laptop matters here as the ‘chest and shoulders shot’ is not really the best for your listeners. If however you’re lucky enough to have a second computer the magic of Mixify begins to shine.

Mixify has an awesome feature where you can remotely stream from a camera on a second computer. You simply have to open up your second computer and head to mixify.com/webcam, agree to the permissions, and your LIVE. It’s very easy and a really cool feature.

Recording your Mix

You have the option to record your mix, be careful not to miss the check box on set up. Recorded mixes appear later in your archived sets where people can hunt you down and check out your skills.
https://www.mixify.com/embed-player?p=mix_id&id=35757&dfb=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubWl4aWZ5LmNvbQ%3D%3D&autoPlay=false

Recorded Mix Vs. Live Events

Mixify seems to categorize your live event separately from from your recorded version of the same. Any live set you stream, will be saved to your ‘Live Stream‘ tab, which includes your track-listing. Weirdly enough though, there is no audio accompanying this. If you checked the record button, your audio is filed elsewhere under your ‘Archive‘ tab.

In the ‘Activity‘ tab as seen below, all your events and recordings are listed in one consolidated list. It would be nice to see Mixify add the recorded set to the event, so that the track listing and the audio are in the same place.

 

Mixify offers you the options of adding all your social networks including your personal website, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud and even your Beatport Profile. There is no option to connect your google plus profile as yet.

Mixify Costs

Mixify is FREE – which is awesome, but comes with limited options. For just $9.99 a month you can access the PRO account, which includes video streaming, custom video playlists and even a tip jar!

Yes, you can earn money for playing by linking your PayPal account. You can even charge a door fee. These fees are all subjected to fees from PayPal and Mixify, but it could be interesting to see if this platform becomes a way to earn some pocket change. Minimum tip is a dollar and you only need to make sure your paypal account has enough money in to make it work.

The most recent change to Mixify is that Live Streams are now embeddable, so if you have your own website and want to host your show, or even someone else’s show, you can.

Final Thoughts

Whilst I did notice some inconsistencies such as:

• ‘My DJ’s‘ list only seemed to appear in the live section and not the archived, despite them having archived sets.
• Google Chrome issues on first session
• The fact that recorded events audio doesn’t appear alongside the event with the playlist
• and the hard to locate support forum

I would say that Mixify is my new favourite platform for broadcasting DJ sets.

I’ve already struck up some relationships with other DJ’s from around the world and obtained 8 fans and 11 hypes from streaming only two sets. I can see Mixify taking over my world. It’s a great platform for both the seasoned DJ to play to a crowd without leaving the comfort of his bedroom or studio. And for the newbie to DJ’ing, it’s an excellent way to make the first steps to performing live.

I fully recommend jumping onto Mixify and hope to see many of you attending my online club! I look forward to checking out all your sets too and hope we can all build a sweet little community on Mixify.

Mixify Promotion

Update: Promo is no closed!
The excellent news is that Mixify have agreed to give all of those on the Traktor Tips Mailing list a 25% discount coupon for 3 months of any subscription level, simply fill out the boxes below and receive your coupon code.
This promo is time sensitive and will close on March 14th.
Look for me (Al Churchill) on Mixify. Be sure to check your spam folder for Mixify email as mine ended up here.